Beware the coming shenanigans on SB6

The full House may not get to vote on Dan Patrick’s bathroom bill, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t get a chance to vote onwhat’s in the bill.

But speculation that SB 6 may not make it to the House floor for a vote by the 150-member chamber has left House Democrats on high alert for the possibility that some Republican members could attempt to attach bathroom-related legislative language to other bills that make it onto the House floor during the remainder of the session.

A small group of House members — particularly those who are anti-Straus and have organized as the Texas Freedom Caucus — are expected to repeatedly offer up portions of the “bathroom bill” as amendments to other bills in an effort to force a vote on the issues, according to sources familiar with the matter.

“It’s clear that the certain Republican members are going to try to add controversial bills to every piece of legislation that they can,” said one Capitol observer who asked not to be named in order to speak more freely.

James Bernsen, the Texas Freedom Caucus’ executive director, said that its members declined to comment. But caucus members have been clear in the past about their support for legislation like SB 6.

Echoing Senate Republicans’ defense of the bathroom legislation, one of the caucus’ legislative priorities is to “protect the privacy of women and girls in all publicly-owned settings.” One of its members — state Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano – filed his own version of the “bathroom bill,” which was referred to Cook’s State Affairs Committee. And on just the second day of the legislative session, Tyler Republican Matt Schaefer, who leads the Freedom Caucus, unsuccessfully attempted to amend a routine resolution related to House administrative issues to require people in the Capitol to use bathrooms corresponding to their biological sex and not their gender identity.

Since nearly the start of the legislative session, SB 6 has emerged among the most prominent disagreements between Straus and Patrick, with the lieutenant governor going as far as saying that Straus is “out of touch with the voters” on the bathroom legislation. The speaker for his part has emphasized that lawmakers must prioritize the state budget and pressing funding needs, including the state’s troubled child welfare system and school finance system.

Meanwhile, Patrick is turning to the religious community to help put pressure on Straus and the House. This month, he announced he was launching “Operation 1 Million Voices” to build support for the bill among Christians in Texas.

Religious groups are planning to host almost a dozen regional summitsbetween now and April to organize pastors in support of the bathroom legislation. The Texas Pastor Council is looking to recruit 3,000 pastors as part of their efforts to press Straus for a hearing and a vote on the legislation.

See here for the story about SB6’s likely fate in committee. These tactics are as old as the House itself, and while it’s more likely to cause the unexpected demise of a different bill than to work, the danger is definitely there. The thing to keep in mind here is that while a large number of Republicans in the House undoubtedly support SB6, only 22 of them need to oppose it – assuming there are no primary-needing turncoats in the House Democratic caucus – for it to fail. You can assume Joe Straus (who normally doesn’t vote anyway), Byron Cook, and Sarah Davis would oppose it, so the magic number starts at nineteen. Maybe they exist and maybe they don’t, but what Cook and Straus are trying to do is keep their fellow Republicans from having to take a side in public on it. There’s a reason why even our wishy washy Governor hasn’t expressed a definitive position on SB6, after all. The zealots want to force the issue, to clarify who’s with them and who they want to primary next year. Everyone else would prefer to let this cup pass them by. The rest of the session is about who wins that fight.

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As a funny aside, Duke lost to South Carolina in Greenville, SC, essentially a road game. If not for North Carolina’s bathroom bill, the game would have been in Greensboro, NC, very near Duke. Not a huge stretch to blame their loss on the bathroom bill.